In the Heat of Battle
by Elsa007
Summary: Love can be quickly forged in the heat of battle and adventure, and for James Conrad and Mason Weaver, their time on Skull Island was certainly hot enough for that. AKA how I think their return to the states SHOULD have gone.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I went to see Kong: Skull Island two nights ago. WAYYYY better than I was expecting, seriously phenomenal! I had some major feels for my new OTP Conrad/Mason and my ship just wouldn't contain itself so I had to write some fanfiction! it's not great, hasn't been beta-ed or ever really edited, but I just had to fet it all out of me! Please let me know if you find edits or things that need to be changed, and let me know what YOU think of the new Kong movie!! (I'm also very open to suggestions on this fic!!)**

xxx

Word would get out, but no one would ever believe it. A giant gorilla, protecting an island of monsters from other monsters? It sounded ridiculous even to (ex)Captain James Conrad, and he had just been witness to the whole series of events. As they all settled back on board the massive ship, swearing up down and center that the island was a death trap of mines and bombs from WWII and that they'd all barely escaped from the otherwise barren landscape with their lives, (a half truth there), Conrad was given a few moments of rest to process the past three days.

Three days?! Had it really only been three days? It seemed impossible. He ran his hand through his hair and amidst the motion heard the sharp click he'd begun to listen for at all times. He turned his head slightly to the left, catching site of her.

xxx

"Mason." I nodded, a greeting in her direction, forcing myself not to stare at her with pure relief that Kong had deemed her worthy to save, pulling her from the water, ripping her from the mouth of the lizard who would have consumed them both. "What drags you away from taking pictures of people who actually want to be photographed?"

"A man with much sharper cheekbones." She spoke with utter sincerity but the twinkle in her eyes alerted me to her words' true intentions. A joke. Mason was joking. I could feel my lips turning up into a half smile, betraying the rugged exterior I was attempting to impersonate.

"Did the Doc check you out yet?" I asked, settling on what I presumed would be a safe line of conversation. She snorted, rolling her eyes.

"Oh he's checked me out plenty." She grumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"Men around here don't seem to deal with women very often."

"You're in a war zone with a war doctor, what did you expect?"

"For him to make sure I'm healthy without insisting on a fully unnecessary full body exam."

"Mason, after what you've been through, that sounds pretty necessary-"

"That's what I thought. Which was how he got me to take off my clothes. Somehow I don't think my breasts required quite that much 'probing' to be honest." Something deep in my chest clenched angrily and I could feel my hand curling tightly into a fist. I had to swallow in an attempt to bring saliva back into my mouth at hearing her words. Before I could speak, however, she continued on.

"Of course now he'd figuring out how a doctor can treat his own broken nose." There it was, that smile again. It wasn't the sort of expression which graced my face often, but I was finding that around her, it was becoming a norm. That's my girl. Tough as nails and unapologetically fierce. A pacifist she might be, but she was willing to fight when the situation demanded.

"So Captain Conrad, where are you headed?" Wasn't that the million dollar question.

"Bill said something to me,"

"Before he got eaten by a giant lizard you mean?"

"Very much so, yes. He said something about how a man goes off in search of something, and doesn't go home until he's found it. He said he wouldn't have found me in the middle of some run down bar on a run down country if I'd found what I was looking for."

"Did you find it then, on Skull Island?" She asked quietly after a long pause.

"No. But I think that somewhere in the middle of trying to save a giant gorilla and defeat monstrous lizards, I stopped looking." She was silent then, we both were. Despite her lack of response I knew she understood perfectly. In life and death situations that intense, one's priorities were straightened out.

"Well when you get where ever you're going, drop a line. I'm pretty sure I owe you a lighter."

"With which you saved my life, I think we're good, Mason." The moment the words left my mouth I grimaced. She'd just invited me to call her, offered an opening with which I could have gotten her phone number, prolonged our acquaintance, something I desperately wanted to do without ever having decided on the subject. And what did I do? I closed that door. Idiot.

"Right. Well, I think we're even on that." She slowly stood to leave and nodded I'm my direction. "I guess I'll see you around, Cap." Fuck me. She'd come over to me. Sat down next to me. Started a conversation by almost sort of flirting, with me. And what did I do? What I always do. I chased her away. Because there was no way she could handle my job, what I do, no way any woman could handle me, could WANT to handle me. Except Mason was different, I'd known that since the beginning. She wouldn't sit, prostrate with worry when I snuck into a military basement and snuck around looking for top secret equipment. Mostly because she had done the exact same thing. She wasn't the sort who would wait patiently for me to come home from war, to come home from my very dangerous job, and when I returned, want me to fit into her tiny little life filled with grocery shopping and garden parties. Actually, I don't think Mason had ever been to a garden party in her life. She was the sort of women who maybe, just maybe, might want to find adventures with me. She was the sort of woman who was braver than me by far, and on top of that, sk, so much better than me. Kong had seen it, somehow, from the beginning, he knew she was worthy to be saved, that she deserved his peotection. If she hadn't been with me, I don't think he would have hesitated in killing me on that cliff's edge. And what did she do? Cower, plead and pray for his mercy? No. She reached out, she touched hum, she gave him her trust and created a bond with him. God knows I would never have been that brave. She was something of a paradox. Soft yet strong. Brave, but more than willing to ask for help, or to reach out to take my hand when she was nervous. I remembered that moment, the first shock she gave me. We had just seen Kong for the first time, he was swiping helicopters out of the sky, I was rather certain that death was near if our young pilot didn't get us the hell out of there. In a moment I will never forget, her hand reached over and clutched mine, steadying us both against the turbulent motion and mortal terror we were facing. Her fingers, curled around mine, gripping me tightly like I was her lifeline, like her hand wasn't the only thing keeping me calm and sane. She hadn't looked at me, she wasn't looking for any sense of comfort from my eyes nor my lips, in fact she was taking it all in, staring at the world around her, even raising her camera to freeze an image of an ape tearing apart a helicopter with his care hands. She didn't shut down from fear, it made her brave, but she wasn't above reaching out for my hand. I stared at her then. Monster gorilla about to kill us and I couldn't tear my eyes of this woman. It was then when I realized I might be in trouble. I didn't fall in love. I didn't even really form romantic conections, all thoughts of love aside. I met women who had a similar understanding as I did. It wasn't emotional. It was just sex. Just for a little while until we both moved on. But Mason, Mason was different. I could see a future with her. Hell I wanted a future with her. The idea of saying goodbye and walking away, never to see her again was... well it was more uncomfortable than I'd been in a long time, and given my line of work and my most recent adventure, that was saying something.

Go after her, a small voice in my head whispered. Go on, go. I pushed myself to my feet and hurried off in the direction she had departed in. Down halls, around corners, searching her out.

Her and two dozen other men, each with their eyes fixed on one of the two women aboard this vessle. And I didn't mean the scientist whose name continually eluded me. Mason. She was the center of attention. But of course she was. How could she not be. And here I was, lining up to be one of her many suitors, lying at her feet, just like the others. Of course the moment we landed, a good deal of them had sweethearts to return to, lives to go back to. How did I explain that I wasn't like them? That this wasn't a romance forged in the heat of battle that would simmer and dissipate over time? Then again, how did I know for certain that it wasn't that sort of thing?

God himself must have been listening to my sudden doubt, and intervened, for at that moment she laughed, her eyes lighting up like stars in a black sky, the sound of her amusement both lyrical and vaguely husky all at once. My heart actually stopped beating for a moment, silencing my whole body so I could hear her laugh, and only her laugh. I loved her. I loved her. It was three days, a few more if you included our few encounters pre-Skull Island, and I had fallen head over heels with love. There were too many men here, vying for a night of passion to help them make it back to their homes and I refused to be one of them. Backing out of the common room, I made my way back towards my room, in the civilian sector, just across the hall from Mason's. Of course they were horridly thin walls, there were no secrets on this ship. I'd heard the scientists, Houston and...that other girl, as we settled in, giving into their own battle forged relationship. And her room was even further away. A vague part of me, in the very back of my mind, wondered if Mason had heard it too (of course she had) and what she had thought of it. If, like me, she had wondered if she should be doing the same thing right about then, giving into the relief and the victory of the whole affair. They certainly had sounded as if the we're enjoying themselves.

I picked up a book and tricked myself into thinking I was reading and not listening for a certain somebody to come back to her room for over half an hour. I could exit my room as she was entering her's, start a conversation, build our relationship, maybe even attempt to flirt. It wasn't something I was particularly good at, but she did tend to bring out that side of me more than most. Except it didn't exactly work that way. Because when her footsteps returned she was most definitely, not alone. Giggles and heavy footsteps tropes toward her room, pausing, in the hallway between our doors. Then, the sound of kissing. Had she really brought one of the soldiers, or worse yet, one of the scientists back to her room?! A jealousy I wasn't used to feeling was filling my chest and I began to pace around my tiny room, my hand tugging at my hair uselessly. Empty. My chest was both full of jealousy and empty all at once.

xxx

Dear God, was I supposed to listen to this all night? Wordless grunts and moans of whichever unworthy bastard she had brought back were echoing across the hall, through two walls, and into my ears where they would be tattooed for all of eternity. The longer and longer this went on, the more likely I was to break everything in sight. Perhaps she was simply quiet, or perhaps my mind chose to tune her out for the sole sake of my sanity, but I didn't hear her making much noise, if any. Maybe it was because he wasn't very good. Maybe it was because he wasn't trying to hard to make her enjoy herself. What a prick. If I had her in my bed... but it was no use thinking on a subject that was far more than just unlikely to happen. I restrained myself, but only just, from throwing my possessions around the room like an infant in a tantrum. I had no right to be this upset, I had no claim to her, we hadn't even kissed for Christ's sake, she'd known me for 5 days, it would have been ridiculous to hold Mason to anything, to feel this jealous, to feel this betrayed, but I couldn't help how I felt. I loved her. And she was ten feet away having loud, unrefined sex with-

A pounding on my door interrupted my horribly angry inner monolog, and I couldn't help but be horribly furious at whomever it was who was interrupting me. Couldn't they hear that next door they were- who in their right minds came that close to two people who were- I mean-

"What?!" I threw the door open, my face etching out ever inch of my displeasure to its audience for the approximately 5 seconds it took to realize that Mason was standing outside my door, looking around furtively. My eyes whizzed from her face to the door of her bedroom where, undoubtedly, intercourse was certainly still occuring.

"I'll explain in a moment but you have to let me in this instant." She whispered, not really giving me a choice as she shoved past me and closed my own door in my own face behind herself.

"So sorry but the captain's coming and they'd be caught if he found me anywhere."

"Mason," I murmured, still unable to look and her, my mind and heart still attempting to reconcile it's jealousy and anger with the relief and flood of passion I felt at the realization that whatever was happening, it wasn't happening with her.

"Shhh!" She insisted quietly, her face alight with excitement. "These walls are completely and utterly thin, you can hear everything!"

"I find myself very aware of that at this moment." She looked confused for about as long as it took for her to realize that she could still hear whatever copulation was occuring across the hall. She giggled quietly.

"It's not what you think."

"I'm torn between responding that I don't know what to think, or that quite obviously you are NOT exchanging pleasantries with any young gentleman, soldier or scientist across the hall in what I do believe is your room, Miss Weaver."

"Speaking of the soldier/scientist battle that was happening on the way here," she began, still on the brink of utter thrill and excitement, "two of them, well one of each, and I won't say who because I respect their privacy and I am completely aware of the consequences, have admitted to one another that their proclivities lie somewhere south of the feminine form and have been looking for a place to, what did you call it? Exchange pleasantries." She grinned. "Being the thoroughly modern woman I am, I offered them my room, as no one would suspect a thing with noises like yhag coming out of a ladies bedroom, but I keep almost running in to people who would surely put two and two together and in order for one of those young men to stay in the military he so desperately loves, I needed to hide."

"Mason,"

"I don't know about you but I find it thoroughly romantic." She bit her lip and my stomach clenched at the view.

"Mason, I-"

"Oh come on Conrad, say you won't tell! It's no different from anytime you've felt the need and-"

"Mason!" She looked surprised, almost as though she hadn't really seen me until this moment.

"Jesus Captain, you look like hell."

"The next time you allow two men into your room to consummate their romantically inclined friendship, you may want to alert your neighbors."

"Ha! How long have you been listening?" She laughed as though this was all one big joke, as though she hadn't very nearly broken my heart in two.

"You speak as though I had a choice in the matter, they aren't exactly quiet, now are they?" I snapped. It was then that she looked truly taken aback.

"Forgive me. I had no idea you were morally opposed to-"

"Oh don't be ridiculous! I couldn't care less what whomever are over there, are romantically inclined to prefer!"

"Then why-" I hadn't cut her off this time, she simply stopped speaking so suddenly it was as though her vocal cords had been cut mid sound. "You thought it was me in there."

"Forgive me for not instantly assuming it was all part of some grand scheme." Even I could hear the bitterness soaking through my voice. "In the future homosexual hideout will be my first guess."

"Conrad," Good God, woman, just say my name like that again. Her eyes filled with an emotion I had no name for, we simply stared at each other.

"I thought you dead." I finally managed, my mind focusing in on the horror filled minutes after she had been swept off the ridge that I had prompted her up. "It cleared my mind for the obvious."

"Forgive me if it's less than obvious." She murmured, a question more than it was a statement.

"They don't deserve you, the men who flirt and tell stories of their victories, their own brilliance. They want you, but the could never love you the way you are meant to be loved."

"And how is that?" She asked, taking a small step forward, closing the gap between us to a matter of inches.

"Let me show you." I whispered back. Her eyes flashed as her lips closer parted. That was as good an invitation as I could have asked for.

Then we were kissing.

Her lips and mine battled for dominance as her hands gripped my tee shirt, mine finding their way separately into her hair, and wrapped around her back. I pulled her into me and did my damndest to devour her. Our kiss spoke of my jealousy, and resulting possessiveness. It spoke of the fear more acute then what I felt when my own life had been at risk, as I saw her body falling amidst rocks and boulders through the air and into the deapths of the water that reached down into a hallow crust filled with monsters. It told of her passion and my love. It whispered promises of many more kisses to come. But most of all, it was pure and utter relief.

I had wanted her. And now I had her. Her tongue darted out, seeking (welcomed) entrance behind my lips and I was in no position to deny her. I walked her back into the door, pressing her body with mine, my hands intertwined with hers, holding them above her head. She was intoxicating, and I needed more. My lips moved south of hers, mapping her neck, her collar bone, back up to her neck for a few minutes more. Her body strained against mine and I shuddered at the way her soft curves pillowed my sharper edges. I nipped aft her neck, causing her to buck against me, and just like that, after semblance of control was gone. I heard a growl come from deep in my throat and I let go of her hands in favor of wrapping my arms around her body, holding her impossibly close to me. She took advantage of this new position to push me back, throwing our bodies down onto my bed. Pulling herself ruthlessly from my grip, she kneeled, her knees on either side of my hips, and sat up, looking down at me like I was her prey. Her shirt was peeled off quickly, leaving her in a sensible grey brassiere that, despite its simplicity and lack of more sensual attributes, made it incredibly hard to breathe. Her hands were making quick work of my tee shirt, though evidently not quick enough, as she was making several adorable noises of frustration. I stripped it off and she ran cold hands over my chest. I shivered at her touch and she smiled mischievously. Her lips descended upon my skin and made quick work of distracting me to the edge of sanity. They licked, nipped, and sucked at my skin, all the while her clever, clever fingers working at the fastenings on my pants. My own fingers rested on her head, curling absent-mindedly in her soft hair. I moaned out my happiness just a moment before her hands struggled to rip my pants down. I helped her, left only in my boxers. She was next. Mason Weaver was wearing far too much clothing. She helped me rid her of her pants, remaining in underwear which left very little to the imagination. My fingers gripped her hip bones, tugging them toward me, my mind unprecedentedly glad that she was still straddling my hips, and I stared into her eyes, watching my own desire reflected back from within.

I couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Mason, I love you." I swore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Wow! You guys like it! *blushes* Because you all were so nice and because I ship the shit out of these two, I've written some more. Hope you all enjoy chapter 2! Please review! xoxo - E**

"Mason, I love you." She froze. Well not exactly froze but her forward progress definitely slowed. She suddenly looked... vaguely panicked? Apprehensive? Nervous? I wasn't exactly sure.

"Conrad, I-"

"You don't have to say it back."

"I want to, I really do, it's just that I only met you a handful of days ago and this is all moving quite fast and I don't want to say it if I don't really mean it. I want to say it because I am sure with every fiber of my body that I mean this and it isn't just...the heat of the battle or something. I want you to know how I feel when I say it, I-"

"Mason you don't have to explain yourself. I just... You don't have to know yet. Like you said, this is all so new, but... Mason I do mean it. With every fiber of my body and I was going to burst if I didn't say it. Don't feel like you have to say anything in return."

"I want you." She finally whispered after a long pause. "I want you, Conrad." I had to bite my tongue to swallow back my own groan. And then we were kissing again. My hands held onto her like I was afraid she would disappear the moment I let go, and she was no less enthusiastic in her attentions. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding her tightly against me as she straddled my hips, our entire bodies pressed against one another in some manner or other. I was pleased to find that she was just as vocal about her needs as she was about that of the unfortunate victims of war she championed so often. When she wanted me to kiss her neck, or turn my hips a certain way, she'd say so. Beyond that, of course, I was keeping her lips occupied with much more enjoyable uses. We continued in this manner for what felt like several hours. I would have been impressed with myself had I not already observed that every second either Mason seemed to stretch on and on, like time itself had slowed to allow me more of it when I was with her. When we had finished - 3 and 4 times, respectively - Mason and I found ourselves in a perfectly unprecedented position. In the literal sense, it was important to not that I had never, physically, been in this position before. How exactly she had gotten her leg... but that wasn't important just now. There was also the other small matter. I loved her. I was in love with her. I hadn't held back, I hadn't hidden my feelings under male bravado or gruff quietness, I had just told her. I loved her. And she maybe had some sort of feelings for me. Hell. It had been a matter of days since I'd found her snooping around the same part of the ship I was occupying with a questionable sort of legality, and now I was in love with a girl.

"Captain Conrad!" A yell from the hallway interrupted what was about to be round 4 before it could truly begin, and Mason looked at me with an excited sort of panic on her face.

"I'm supposed to be across the hall." She murmured, reminding me of her subterfuge and my subsequent jealousy. I smiled back.

"Quick, hide." I stood and did my best to make myself presentable while she scrambled under my rack, pulling the bed sheets low over the side - certainly not made to military standards - to cover her body. I swiped her underwear off where they had been thrown on the floor and stuffed them unceremoniously into my pocket, reminding myself to feign ignorance when she searched for them later. I ran my fingers through my hair again and made it to the door just before the man with the loud voice and horrible timing began to pound on my door. I threw it open to find Hank Marlow grinning from ear to ear. He stepped past me before I could protest and strode to my bed. I opened my mouth, a plea for his silence on this matter already forming when he plopped himself down, making himself comfortable, clearly ignorant to the happenings of a few moments prior.

"I've been looking for your room for nearly half an hour. When did the military start making such boring ships?" He said with a grin. "Check it out - I found beer! I'd offer to share but you've probably had a drink more recently than me, don't you think?" He laughed at his own joke and took a swig from his bottle. "Nice little room you've got here. They put me up in that Captain's rooms. The one who died. I thought it might be morbid, you know, like I wouldn't want to sleep there, but then I laid down on that pillow and remembered what pillows even feel like and let me tell you, I haven't slept that well in years. I guess it doesn't matter much who died somewhere. Chances are, someone's died pretty damn close to wherever you are at any given moment. Or maybe not. I guess that would depend where you are, then, wouldn't it? Cause out in the middle of the ocean, not so likely, but anywhere on land, I mean someone at SOME point in time must have died nearby. Even if it's just like a caveman somewhere out in the middle of a field of dinosaurs or something."

"You know cavemen and dinosaurs didn't live at the same time, right?"

"Oh really? You just spent a whole lot of up close and personal time with a bunch of lizards that have been around since the dawn of time and a giant ape who protects you from them and you don't think one or two of those lizards were around for the cavemen? Where do you think monster stories come from then?" I didn't have a response to that. It was actually a pretty good point. "Anyway, lizards, dinosaurs, who cares. I'm not going to have to see them anytime soon! I used to be afraid of lions, did you know? Really afraid. I had nightmares that one was going to escape from a cage somewhere and show up in my house and I'd have to fight it. Which was ridiculous cause why would it pick my house out of all of the houses? I love my momma but she can't cook. If there were a lion on our street growing up it would have gone straight to Mrs. Foote's house cause it always smells like something good is cooking when you walked past there. Well now when I go to the zoo I'm going to look at those things and laugh. I could take a lion. No worries there. Now the lions are probably afraid of me, you know?"

"Hank, it isn't that I'm not enjoying this conversation, I'm just wondering if there was a reason you were looking for me."

"Oh! Yeah! I was wondering if you wanted to throw shit into the ocean with me."

"What?"

"Not actual shit, I'm not dumping the latrines or anything. but there are a bunch of food scraps from the kitchen, stuff that they can't make into anything and one of the cooks said I could throw it into the ocean if I wanted and that sometimes you can see fish jumping up for it and I thought that'd be really cool, only I would seem a bit crazy if anyone saw me doing that by myself so I thought maybe if I found someone to do that with me no one would try to throw me in on account of insanity or anything and I could just go for it." Oh shit. How did I say no to that? I mean there was a naked girl under my bed. A naked girl who I loved under my bed. If Hank left and I stayed here then I could go back to doing things with the naked girl I loved under my bed. I meant that the naked girl was under my bed now, not that I was going to be doing things with her in that specific location - actually, maybe! But Hank's eyes were so hopeful, and I already knew that if I let him walk out of here Mason would be pissed I hadn't gone with him and kept the lonely bastard company. I sighed.

"I would love to go throw shit overboard with you Hank." His face lit up and he bounced up to his feet.

"Yes! I knew I could count on you Captain."

"If you could just let me change my shirt real quickly," I prompted, leading him to the door in the hopes of a minute alone with her, to explain, and maybe steal one more kiss."

"Nah, you look handsome. Come on!" And with that, he pulled me through the door and shut it behind me. Great. Just great. Moans and grunts were still coming through Mason's door and Hank looked back at me smirking.

"Sure seems like someone's having fun. But hey, I bet a strapping guy like you could make her scream louder than that asshat." I had to bite my lip to keep a straight face. "I don't mean any offense or nothing, I don't want to be disrespecting a lady or anything, but I just spent a couple of decades around people whose main communication is eye glances and body languages. I'd have to be stupid not to see the way you feel about her. Don't worry, Cap. We'll get her back for you."

* * *

 **Author's Note: It's a short chapter and not much happens, I know I'm awful. BUT THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT! I really want to gauge my reader's opinions before I continue so I know what sort of story I'm attempting to write here. My initial idea was to go super smutty with this. Porn with a bit of Plot sprinkled in. But if that's not what people are feeling, I need some other ideas. (Or if you are thinking smutty, you can still give me ideas!)**

 **Please review and let me know what you'd like to read!**

 **Thanks so much! xoxo - E**


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